Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Germany and Austria, Volume II

740.00119 EW/2–1348

Memorandum by the Secretary of State

secret

[Washington,] February 13, 1948.

At the Cabinet meeting today we took up the question of reparations returns. The President was willing to go along with our proposal. Harriman, Krug and Anderson all opposed it. Forrestal also opposed it as regards steel.

Anderson particularly felt that in our letter to Vandenberg,¹ Harriman’s memorandum² had been completely ignored.

All were rather confused by the analysis³ distributed to the Cabinet, as I also was.

Krug referred to what he called the “mumbo-jumbo” of the portion of the letter to Vandenberg referring to “deliveries being in balance.”

I suggested to the President that we drop the matter this morning and take it up again at luncheon on Monday.⁴

G. C. M[arshall]

1. The reference here is to the Secretary of State’s letter of February 4 to Senator Vandenberg; see the editorial note, p. 717.
2. Ante, p. 716.
3. The reference here is presumably to the Department of State memorandum of February 12, supra.
4. February 16.